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Talk:Ancient Dead/@comment-33394789-20171017141528
All Ancient Dead (not including necrosavants) have the Pathfinder, Rotation, Shield Expert and Fearsome perks (possibly Backstabber as well, but I'm not sure on that). Necrosavants have the Head Hunter and Duellist perks, and now use a special anti-armour cleaving weapon ("Khop"-something) instead of swords, making them lethal against anyone without very high melee defence and/or very heavy armour and/or damage-reduction perks (Nimble, Steel Brow, Battle Forged, Indomitable). Billhooks are no longer classified as piercing weapons; their basic attack ("Strike") is the same as the longaxe's and is fully effective against skeletons. I think the goblin pike's attack ("Rupture") is considered a piercing attack, but I'm not certain. Although pikes and spears and daggers are only semi-effective against skeletons, the low hit-points of the target mean that it still only takes 2 hits with a pike (or 3-4 with a spear) to finish them off. Also, although the attack tooltip warns that the target is resistant, throwing axes (unlike javelins) are fully effective against skeltons. Thus, one viable tactic with ranged fighters is to use bows to break down armour from range, and then switch to throwing axes at close quarters. If a ranged fighter has very high initiative (at least over 120, but ideally quite a lot higher), it is possible to use the Overwhelm perk to lower the defence skills of necrosavants (who will be behind you in the turn order), although even minor incurments of fatigue (from shooting or sustained attacks) can lower initiative enough to put you behind them. With highly advanced archers with Nimble and a high Dodge bonus, you can sweat it out and switch to a dagger to apply Overwhelm stacks (you can always take Bags&Bets and have a heater shield in reserve). At close quarters, where Anticipation is of little use, high-skill archers still have half a chance to hit necrosavants, so that it's worth switching back to shooting (so long as you can do it without moving to a vulnerable position). Other possible tactics against necrosavants include (1) using the Adrenaline perk on characters with the highest melee skill (so that they can attain consecutive attacks against them before they can retaliate) and (2) using the Stagger effect (from 2-handed hammers or Polearm Mastery) to put them at the end of the turn order (so that it's safer to break formation and swarm them with a decent chance to kill them off before they can retaliate/heal). These two tactics are also great against Bounty Hunters, Frenzied Direwolves and ready-to-eat Nachzehrers. Personally, I like to populate the edge of my formation with 2-handers and pole/reach fighters who have the Indomitable perk, so that they can attack necros, do Adrenaline and attack again, and then (if the necros are still alive and not Staggered) do Indomitable so that any retaliatory healing is minimized. I also use Recover, and disable the option to auto-end turns, so that you can always do Adrenaline again (if needed) on the same turn as you Recover.